


these four walls

by awakeanddreaming



Series: tear these walls down, and build them back up with memories [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: A little angst, Building A Home, Epilogue, F/M, Family, Love, One Shot, do you believe in ghosts, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:57:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15559209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awakeanddreaming/pseuds/awakeanddreaming
Summary: So, she does. She walks him around the house, lost again somewhere in her future world. Awake and dreaming. Her eyes gloss over, her voice is filled with child like enchantment as she explains her vision to him. He watches her with the same wonder in which she takes in the house. He watches her with careful eyes. He admires her as she animatedly explains her vision to him. He might not be able to see what she sees but he sees her, and he looks at her with a love and devotion that seems well beyond his young age. He barely looks at the house, hardly registers the sad state is it in, he just sees her. He sees how much she loves it and her love is reflected back in his gaze.The house still belongs to Mary, but soon it will also be home to someone else. A girl who fell in love with it at first sight, just like Mary had once upon a time. A girl who will make it her own. A girl who loves a boy and dreams of a future and a family in this house.Or Tessa falls in love with her house the moment she walks in





	1. a fairer house than prose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I edited a few lines from the original to reflect the fact that T first passed by her house while with Scott (thanks House and Home article)

_ Yes I dwell in Possibility – _

_ A fairer House than Prose – _

_ More numerous of Windows – _

_ Superior – for Doors – _

 

_ Of Chambers as the Cedars – _

_ Impregnable of eye – _

_ And for an everlasting Roof _

_ The Gambrels of the Sky – _

  
  


_ Of Visitors – the fairest – _

_ For Occupation – This – _

_ The spreading wide my narrow Hands _

_ To gather Paradise – _

 

_ -Emily Dickinson _

  
  


_ These four walls build up a house haunted by memories. They contain ghosts of the lives that once lived here. These four walls hold past, present, future, and infinite possibility. _

_ If these walls could talk they would share secrets of life, of love, of loss, of loneliness and longing, of leaving and of coming home. If these walls could see they would witness moments of passion, of joy, of anger, and of regret. If these walls could breathe they would inhale the scents of life well lived, of sex, of dirty diapers, of burnt breakfast, of apple pies, and fresh cut flowers.  _

_ If these walls could talk they could tell stories fit for books, spinning out novels of the many lives of the many families they have housed over a hundred years. _

_ These walls may be silent but ghosts can see and hear. They have souls that can feel. They don’t make a sound but they witness all the same. Trapped inside these four walls, the ghost knows everything. _

  
  


_ Summer 1997 _

 

For the last thirty-nine years the house has belonged to Mary. She bought it in her early twenties with money her grandmother had left her. Everyone thought she was crazy but the house had to be hers, she knew it in her bones. Thirty-six of those years it belonged to Mary and her husband, George. Here—together—they raised three beautiful, brilliant daughters. The evidence of their childhood is still ever present. Present in the pencil ticks on closet doors marking yearly growth, in the deep scuffs in the hardwood floors, in the dent in the plaster at the bottom of the stairs from when Lisa—the youngest—decided to toboggan from the top floor. The house is a living memory of the life they lived here. Three daughters, two of whom now have children of their own, and Mary and her husband called this place home for over three decades, nearly four. Now, again, the house belongs to Mary alone.

There is a knock at the door, but the visitor doesn’t wait for an answer. The knock was just precursory. The door pushes open and a familiar voice rings out through the house, breaking a long silence and Mary out of her own quiet world.

“Ma? Mom? Where are you?”

“Shelly? Is that you?” Mary asks, though she knows it’s her oldest daughter. “I’m in the kitchen,” she then answers as she shuffles slowly, deliberately, around her kitchen trying to remember where she put the potato peeler.

Shelly enters the kitchen followed by her own daughter, Taylor. Mary’s granddaughter is looking around the house as if trying to locate something or someone that is missing. She is trying to search out a familiar presence, hoping there might be some part of him left here.

“Oh, hello there Taylor.” Mary plasters on a smile for her granddaughter.

The little girl slinks down into one of the kitchen chairs, tightly clutching a book, her voice is soft and quiet. “Hi Nana.”

Shelly sits wordlessly across the table from her daughter. It’s the same table they’ve had since Shelly was a child. Mary can see her daughter run her fingers over the idents where her thumb nail had once carved her name into the soft wood. Shelly sits in front of a pile of half peeled potatoes. Picking up a paring knife, mindlessly she begins to peel.

“What’s with all the potatoes, Ma?” Shelly asks. Mary looks up at her as she discards a peel into the colander in the center of the table.

“Gnocchi,” she responds, noticing how her granddaughter perks up, a shy smile creeping across her face. Mary shakes her head and taps her granddaughter on the nose. “There is a potluck luncheon at the church tomorrow.” She pauses, “But maybe we can make some extra just for you.”

After finally locating the potato peeler Mary sits across the table from her daughter and sets to work peeling the remainder of the potatoes. Mother, daughter, and granddaughter sit in silence as the older work through the potatoes and the youngest reads her book. Mary likes this kind of quiet, the scraping of blades against the potato skins, the slow steady breathing of her daughter and granddaughter matching her own, and the occasional rustling of pages as Taylor flips through her book. She misses this kind of comfortable quiet.

Finally, Shelly heaves out a heavy sigh, “So, how are you doing Ma?”

Mary looks down, intent on studying the new wrinkles forming on her knuckles. She focuses on her left ring finger and the indent left by thirty-six years of wearing the same ring day in and day out. She wonders if the indent will ever go away or if her hand has grown and changed to accommodate the symbol of a life that no longer exists.

“I’m fine,” Mary huffs. She doesn’t need to be babied by her children. She looks at the clock on the stove: 5:30. “Don’t you have other kids to go home to feed?”

The younger woman shrugs. “Tom took the boys to his parents while I had Taylor at skating. I had errands to run and then we came to check in on you.”

“Skating? Are you doing lessons?” Mary turns to her granddaughter.

Taylor looks up from her book and nods. “Yeah, in Ilderton.”

“Ilderton?” Mary questions.

Shelly nods. “I know what you’re going to say, Ma. I know are plenty of places in London and I’m sure they are great...but Ilderton is where we all had our lessons and it was dad’s favourite rink. It just seemed right to have her there.”

Mary keeps quiet, peeling more potatoes, trying to think of nothing but her gnocchi preparations.

“Oh, we saw the cutest thing before Taylor’s class. There was an ice dance lesson and these two kids—couldn’t have been more than eight or nine—”

“Their names are Tessa and Scott, mom.” Taylor interrupts, her cheeks pinking, looking embarrassed by this whole storyline. Her mom probably talked about it the whole drive over. Shelly has always been a sap for all things cute and romantic. “And Tess is the same age as me. She is in my lesson too.”

Shelly nods at her daughter before continuing, smiling brightly. “Well they were going around the ice holding hands and learning dance holds…and it was just absolutely the most precious thing I have ever seen.” She glances at her daughter and smiles eyebrows raising, “Taylor thought it was gross, says she would never skate with a boy…but it was just so sweet, I’ve seen that boy around the rink before and normal he is a bit of a terror but he was so gentle and sweet with her. I don’t think they realized that all the adults in the rink had stopped to watch them.” Shelly sighs before continuing. “They are both so tiny but they skate so well. It looked like they were trying to act like little grown-ups with the amount of focus they had…I talked to their moms later at the boards and they’ve only been skating together a few months but looked so natural, they just fit together...It really was the sweetest thing.” She pauses and draws in a long shaky breath, “Dad would have loved it. It made me think of when he used to pick us up and skate around holding us like we were dancing. Dancing and skating were always two of his favourite things…” Her thought trails off.

Mary turns her head away, wiping a tear from under her eye and inhaling deeply through her nose, holding the air in for a moment before releasing—she is trying to settle herself into her new normal where he isn’t here. She doesn’t need or want to talk about him, not just yet. “Well, it sounds like those kids are going places.” She turns to her granddaughter, “So, tell me Tay-bear, what are you reading?”

“It’s called Awake and Dreaming. It’s about a girl who wants a family and a ghost and an old house.” Her granddaughter answers, her voice getting high and her words coming out quickly like they do when she’s excited. This is clearly a new favourite book, Mary will look in to finding a copy to read herself, if only to have something to talk about with Taylor. 

  
  


_ Spring 2004 _

 

Mary reads the paper every morning, she always has. Even when the kids were little she would sit with her coffee perusing the news while they played contentedly with their breakfast cereal. On the weekends they used to read the paper together—her and her husband—swapping pages as they finished them.

She has lived alone in the house for seven years now and keeping up with her old routine helps fill up her days. Though, when she reads the paper on the weekend she still finds herself passing the finished pages to the empty seat next to her.

She has the daily paper laid out on the kitchen table. The early sun streams in through the window over the sink, which overlooks the backyard—she spent hours of her life watching her children play over a sink full of dishes. Her mug of coffee, with just a splash of heavy cream, is clasped between her hands while she scans the headlines.

A picture and its corresponding article catches her eye. It’s of two kids on the ice leaning in towards each other, smiling brightly. The article that follows is about how two local teens won the Canadian Junior Championships for figure skating, in Ice Dance. They train in Kitchener but started at the Ilderton skating club—she hums remembering a conversation from seven years earlier and thinks maybe, just maybe these are those very same kids. They really are quite a cute little pair.

Mary doesn’t know why, it feels almost like a compulsion, but she gets up finds the kitchen scissors in the drawer next to the stove. Carefully she cuts out the article and the photo, smiling back at the happy image of the local kids with huge potential.  There is just something about them that draws her in, they seem so special. Something about them strikes her. There is something undefinable there between them, she can tell even through a grainy newspaper photograph.

They’re going places she thinks. She doesn’t know why she is so sure, but it feels almost like a certainty.

She tucks the article into a box of old photos and memories—items that have belonged to this house over the course of forty years. Now, in that small picture, tucked away in a box in a closet, it is like they belong here too.

  
  


Winter 2010

 

The old TV plays footage of the Olympics, background noise, as two of Mary’s daughters carefully box up their mother’s things.

Shelly uses the pad of her thumb to wipe a stray tear as she boxes up family photos. All the photos are  in mismatched frames from all around the house. Their removal is obvious by the dark squares—the places where the sun could not reach to bleach the pink floral wallpaper— on the wall and the stripes on the mantle free from dust. Mary loved collecting photographs, putting them in whatever frame she found, often buying handfuls of frames from the thrift store. Her walls and mantle had always been cluttered with photos of her girls—school pictures, graduation pictures, wedding pictures—and eventually she had to make room for ones of her grandchildren until there was hardly any space left untouched.

The sisters heave in a sigh at the exact same moment and turn in synch to the TV. They do this for no reason in particular, other than needing a mental break from the emotionally draining task at hand. The broadcast is playing a feed from earlier in the day—Ice Dance. A voice on the TV set announces that the young Canadian pair are about to take the ice.

Carla smiles halfheartedly at her sister. The two look so much alike when they smile. “They are those local kids, aren’t they? I read about them in the paper. Mom followed them a bit I think. I’ve seen some articles around the house that she clipped about them.”

Shelly nods, “Yeah, they really are something. I can’t believe how beautifully they move together.”

They watch the rest of the program in silence, mesmerized by how the young couple dance with such grace and skill. Carving deep edges and moving together as if extensions of one another. They exude young love and Mary’s daughters perched in the living room of her London home can’t help but smile for the first time in days. Immediately after the program finishes the station flips to the replay of the pair holding each other tightly in celebration. A voice rings out through the TV, filling the living room with sound, “Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir win gold for Canada!”

“That was beautiful. I’m so happy they won.” Carla muses, turning from the TV.

“You know,” Shelly starts, raising an eyebrow and pouting her bottom lip in thought—the same way she had as a child. “I think I saw them skate when they were just little things. Back when Taylor was in lessons. I’m pretty sure they used to skate just just before her.”

Shelly settles herself back into the couch and looks around the half empty house, trying to push down tears as forty-eight years of memories come crashing down on her.

The house is still Mary’s, even if she isn’t here with them anymore. The house is still hers, her presence permeates every inch. She is still here, not yet ready to leave.

  
  


Spring 2011

 

The realtor walks in first  in a pressed pantsuit and hair pulled in a tight coil on top of her head pulling her face taut, emphasizing her angular features. She’s been here countless times but the buyer has never been right.

Next comes the girl, beautiful but a little curled in on herself, like the world is just too big for her. She crosses the threshold and her breath catches, her whole presence lightens. She looks around starry-eyed as if she is seeing right passed the dated façade and is taking the house in for what it could be rather than what it is. The girl is followed closely by a woman—white blonde hair to the youngers long dark waves but the same piercing green eyes. The older does not carry the same wonderment as the younger, but rather looks around with a concerned skepticism.

“The house had been rented out and then vacant for the last little while,” the realtor begins, looking to the older woman. “The price was just reduced yesterday. The sellers know it needs a bit of work but it has great bones and a lot of history. It’s a great family home. The previous owner lived here for fifty years.”

The woman shakes her head at the realtor, with just a hint of an eyeroll. “I’m not the one looking, this all my daughter.”

She nods towards the girl, who has walked past the entryway and is spinning circles in the living room—taking in the space. She looks barely old enough to drink. She looks like she should be living in a dorm somewhere studying until the early hours of the morning, drinking too much, and making the kind of silly mistakes you make when you’re young, not purchasing a big old house. Especially not one with a list of repairs as long as a college reading list.  

“I love it,” the girl smiles brightly at the realtor. Her mother shakes her head.

The realtor shows them the rest of the house while talking about crown moldings, original hardwood, yard space and school districts. The girl pays no attention. She appears lost in her own little world—imagining potential.

When they have come full circle and reach the front entry way again the girl takes in a large breath and sighs, her eyes shimmering with something, hope maybe. “It’s perfect.”

Her mother rubs two fingers from the bridge of her nose up to the middle of her forehead, as if she has a headache. “Tess, honey,” she sighs, mildly exasperated. “I don’t know if this is a good idea. You haven’t thought this through, a house is a lot. This house is a lot.”

“Mom,” the girl puts her hands on her hips like a petulant toddler. “I want this. No. I need this.”

“Tess—”

The girl’s look is pleading. She is asking permission but looks set enough in her choice that it won’t matter what the answer is. “Mom, I need this. I need to do something, to have something that’s just for me. Something that is mine.”

The older woman rubs between her eyes again, she knows she isn’t winning. “You should at least look at more houses if this is really what you want, honey. What about a new build? There are tons of developments going up around the city—or just outside.”

The girl shakes her head and there is a level of surety and clarity to her voice that seems beyond her age. “No. This is it. This is my house. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it. I feel like this house has to be mine.”

“That doesn’t sound like you Tess. A feeling? That isn’t how you make decisions.” She looks to the realtor for help but knows it won’t come. “This is an old house, a big house. It will need a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of money. You’re still in Canton, you’ll barely ever be here.”

“I have the money mom. I want this. Besides, a full reno means I can make it exactly what I want. I won’t be training forever, I see this as a future.”

“And this is just for you? This is really what you want honey? You’re not chasing someone else’s dream?”

The girl gives her mother a pointed look, but nods. “This is for me. I am finally making a choice that’s just for me.”

The girl and her mother share a meaningful look, a look that expresses years of knowledge of ups and downs and something more. The realtor may as well not be in the room.

“Okay,” her mother says..

 

_ Spring 2011 _

 

Later that same night there are voices on the front porch. It’s the girl again, she has brought a boy with her.

“So,” she starts sounding nervous, “this afternoon I did a thing.”

“Okay? T, I know you really like house, but we probably shouldn't break in,” the boy says, teasingly, though also with a hint of nervousness, like he thinks the girl might actually be bringing him to help in a break and enter. He sounds like he’d do it, if she asked.

There is some rustling and banging as the girl struggles with getting the key from the lock box. “Scott, we aren’t breaking in. Don’t tell anyone but the realtor gave me the code for this thing. I don’t want her to get in trouble.”

“It’s okay T. I know how persuasive you can be.”

The girl’s laugh is loud. It penetrates the door and rings out through the house.

“But really, Tess, what are we doing here? You actually talked to the realtor? When we saw it the other day I didn't think you were serious.” The boy sounds a mixture of both confused and amused.

“I put an offer on this house this afternoon. I’m buying this house…well hopefully,” she says, voice firm, then waivering—both proud and nervous.

The door pushes open and the girl is pulling the boy over the threshold by the hand, gently tugging him behind her. She has the same look of wonderment she did early in the day. The boy—also young, looking like he should be at a frat party somewhere—grabs her other hand and spins the girl to face him.

“Kiddo, I didn’t think you actually wanted to buy a house. I mean, we are never home…”

She squeezes his hands. “I know…I wasn’t really looking. I mean, not seriously. But when we saw this house…and I don’t know I just felt something. And then this afternoon I came to see it…I don’t know I just kinda fell in love. I feel like this just has to be mine.”

She is looking at the boy with stars in her eyes. Stumbling over her words. It is easy to see by the way she looks at him, eyes wide and adoring, that this boy and his opinion mean everything to her. She needs him to like it. She’s desperate for his approval.

“A feeling? T, are you  _ feeling _ okay?”

“Now you’re sounding like my mom,” she turns away from him so he can’t see the brightness from her expression fade as her face falls.

“Well Kate is usually full of great advice.”

The girl huffs through her nose and steps away from him. “I just…I thought you’d get it.” Her voice drops, barely a whisper. “I really wanted you to like it.”

The boy squares his shoulders, sighs, and tugs her hand to pull her back toward him. When he speaks his tone is gentle but strong. He seems to know what to say, as if he has done this many times before. “If you like it, then I will like it. Why don’t you show me?”

So, she does. She walks him around the house, lost again somewhere in her future world. Awake and dreaming. Her eyes gloss over, her voice is filled with childlike enchantment as she explains her vision to him. He watches her with the same wonder in which she takes in the house. He watches her with careful eyes. He admires her as she animatedly explains her vision to him. He might not be able to see what she sees but he sees her and he looks at her with a love and devotion that seems well beyond his young age. He barely looks at the house, hardly registers the sad state is it in, he just sees her. He sees how much she loves it and her love is reflected back in his gaze.

They make it up the stairs and she practically drags him to the little alcove on the landing. The paint on the off-center window is peeling away, just like the wallpaper surrounding it is peeling from the drywall underneath it. The moon shines brightly through the window, casting shadows on the floor.

They sit together on the floor in front of the window, leaning against the wall. She rests her head on his shoulder.

“This is my favourite spot,” she speaks softly.

“I love it kiddo.” He leans his head into hers. “You deserve this. I know everything’s been hard lately.” He runs a hand over her shins, which are pulled up close to her body. “You’ve gone through so much and I…I am so proud of you. So proud. You deserve to be happy.”

She reaches for his hand and intertwines her fingers with his. “I am happy.”

“Love you, kiddo” He hums, kissing the top of her head.

The girl looks at the boy with purpose, her eyes worming their way into his soul, she breathes in deeply and exhales slowly. This is important. “I love you too, Scott. So much.”

The house still belongs to Mary, but soon it will also be home to someone else. A girl who fell in love with it at first sight, just like Mary had once upon a time. A girl who will make it her own. A girl who loves a boy and dreams of a future and a family in this house.   
  


_ Winter 2012 _

 

The house doesn’t look like Mary’s anymore. The floral wallpaper has all been torn away, the floors replaced, the windows refinished. Slowly, one room at a time, the house has been stripped bare to the bones and rebuilt. It isn’t done, the kitchen is currently storage and only one of the bathrooms is complete and functional. And the house feels lonelier than even the years Mary spent living here by herself—after her husband was gone.

The girl is hardly ever home. And when she is she does little more than pin up inspirational pictures from home magazines and tack up paint chips to compare. She calls contractors, discusses ideas, negotiates prices. Sometimes she spends the night but it’s clear she finds the incompleteness and the loneliness hard to handle. Even when she is here, she seems like she is somewhere else. She is waiting for this house to feel like the home she imagined it to be when she bought it.

She is in the living room—one of the few completed rooms—alternating between pacing, ringing her hands, and half performing dance steps with an invisible partner and music that only plays in her head. Her anxiety is palpable, it practically vibrates through the house. Its weight moves with her from room to room.

She is about to run through whatever dance it is she has been performing when the doorbell rings. She appears surprised. Cleaelt not expecting a visitor so late, she cautiously pads over to the front door. First, she opens the inner glass paned door, then slowly, carefully, the outer door to the porch.

She comes back in breathing heavily, carrying a white metal bucket. The bucket is inexplicably filled with rice and an envelope with the letter T scrawled on it sticks out on top.

She barely makes it three steps into the hallway before putting the bucket down and dropping to her knees in front of it. She takes the card and opens it, careful not to tear the envelope. As she reads her hand migrates to her chest, just above her heart. Her breath deepens and when she is done reading her eyes close. She is half laughing, half crying.

Hand still on her heart, she says to the empty space, “Goddammit Scott, stop making me love you so much.”

  
  


_ Winter 2013 _

 

The house is finally almost complete. Everything is clean and white or grey against dark wood floors. The only things that remain from the days Mary lived here are the small accents of character the girl has preserved. The window in the upstairs alcove, the fireplace, the moldings, the banister and the original heat registers—though even all of that has been stripped down and refinished. And a box. One single box of photos, memories and old newspaper clippings. The girl has never brought herself to open it—because it does not belong to her— but also couldn’t seem to throw it away. So, it remains tucked away on the top shelf of the coat closet—forgotten, along with most of the other memories of Mary’s life in this house.

Two bodies come crashing through the front door, a tangle of limbs, slamming into the coat closet door, rattling it. It’s the girl and the boy—their bodies locked together in furious passion. They bump into door frames and side tables on their way to the living room, never letting go of each other as if letting go would break some sort of spell and the world would come crashing down on them. They appear tethered together by an invisible thread, fraying, threatening to snap if they stop to breathe, if they pull apart even for a moment.

The air in the room is heavy with emotion. As they find their way to the couch the atmosphere fills with passion and love but also loss and devastation and a lot of anger as they strip each other bare. They are pulling back layers of history until only the studs remain, just as the girl had done to this house. This isn’t the first time this has happened here, but it is the most frantic—desperate almost.

She is out of her pants, and the buttons of her shirt have been ripped open by the time he pushes her down on the couch. She lays momentarily breathless while he steps out of his own pants and settles himself between her legs. He kisses her bare neck and chest fiercely, leaving a trail of angry red marks on her skin.

“You’re so beautiful, Tess,” he says as he captures and holds her wrists above her head. The statement is genuine and his eyes full of pure adoration, but the way he says it is heated and rough around the edges.

She gasps as he thrusts into her, unable to form words in reply. Her arms are still trapped above her head as she bucks her hips up to meet his. Using her core to pull herself upward she manages to meet his lips and trap them in a rough, sloppy kiss. Their union is messy and fast as they continue to pour their unchecked feelings of love, hurt and anger into each other’s bodies—as if trying to express to the other how they feel without words.

When they are both spent and the heaviness of their emotions and smell of sex still hang in the air, he gets up and starts putting his shirt and jeans back on. He looks at her spread out on the couch with her blouse open, though still clinging to her arms, lacy bra straps hanging off her shoulders, thick, dark stage makeup smudged around her eyes, her lipstick now mostly on his face and neck and her dark hair fanned out around her head in stark contrast to the white couch. She looks like art. He breathes in deeply and exhales sharply.

“I should go.”

She shakes her head, her voice quiet and pleading. “Please don’t. Scott, stay…please just stay with me.”

“Tess.” His voice breaks a little as he says her name. “I can’t…I shouldn’t.”

“We lost. Scott, we lost. I want you…I need you to stay with me.”

He kneels down on the floor in front of her and kisses her, softly this time. “Kiddo, you know I can’t stay. I shouldn’t be here…I have to go.” His face betrays that his resolve is breaking. But he kisses her one more time and holds his ground. “It’s a bad idea…if I stay. I have to go.”

She nods solemnly in understanding, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Okay.” It comes out in a whisper.

He turns to leave, glancing back at her—now curled up alone on her couch—once before opening the door. His eyes are rimmed red and glistening. Leaving is hard for him too, but she can’t see that.

“I love you,” she whispers to his back, but he is already gone.

Curled tightly in on herself—still half naked—she sobs into her knees. “We lost,” she says the words over and over. She seems so small and alone in a house that is far too big.

  
  


_ Fall 2014 _

 

The girl is home more now, but the house still feels lonely. Empty. Filled with suffocating silences. She floats through her days unanchored, allowing herself to drift with the tide, only ever seeming half sure about what she is doing but doing too much at the same time.  She walks around like something is missing from her. It is as if she is searching for some integral part of her being that has been taken from her. It is like she has lost a limb and is struggling to compensate for it. She fills the void by barely allowing herself time to breathe. When she does, when she allows herself time to be still her body betrays her heartache. When she stills enough to catch her breath, to stop floating away unmoored, it’s as if she is drowning. Suffocated by the weight of her missing pieces—afraid she is lost adrift for good. It is a feeling Mary knew well, the all-consuming emptiness that threatened to crush her when she lost George.  

The girl pulls out a bag of kale salad mix from her too large—large for one person who never cooks—fridge and puts it next to a plate on the island. She looks from the salad, still good but beginning to wilt in the plastic bag, to a plate of chocolate almond croissants sitting untouched in the centre of the island. The pastries were brought over earlier by the girl’s mother.

Pushing the bagged salad aside with a heavy sigh she grabs a croissant. She eats it—devours it like she has been starved for months—letting flakes of pastry and powdered sugar fall onto the shiny surface of the counter. When she finishes she looks back at the salad, still sitting next to the plate, and then again to the remaining three pastries.

“Fuck it,” she says out loud to no one but herself, before reaching for a second. She eats this one more slowly and deliberately than the first. She turns the bites over in her mouth, savoring the sweetness.

She doesn’t stop herself from reaching for a third and quickly rips off pieces eating them before she gives herself time to think. Maybe she feels like flour and sugar and chocolate will somehow fill the void left by whatever it is she lost. But after a few bites she throws it back onto the plate violently, making a face as if she had just bitten into something rotten. Her attention turns to the mess of crumbs and powdered sugar in front of her which she tries to contain with her hands, transferring the mess to the plate, but it is of little use. Tears form in the corner of her eyes and her breathing picks up, like the air around her is too hot and thick and she can’t quite get a full breath.

She folds her arms on the counter in front of her and rests her head on them. The rhythm of the rise and fall of her chest becomes erratic. She stays there a while with her head on her arms, struggling to control her breathing. Once her breathing is a bit less strained she gets up and takes both the plate of croissants and the bag of salad over to the sink. She opens the cupboard, pulls out the track with the garbage can and tosses everything in.

She hits the white ceramic plate against the rim of the can with such force that it breaks in half in her hands. She drops it and the pieces shatter. She cries out. Literally screams. Cries in frustration, in loneliness, in pain. Cries for whatever it is she is missing. Cries that turn into wracking sobs, all while standing over a broken plate. Her body shakes while she picks up the broken pieces.

After, sitting on the floor of her kitchen leaning against the island she pulls out her phone. She stares at it for a long time before dialing out—like she isn’t sure she is allowed to call the person she wants but needs to anyways. Breathing deeply and closing her eyes as if in meditation—like simple phone call holds the whole weight of her entire world. Like one phone call could simultaneously make her whole and tear her to peices.

“Hi,” her voice is quiet, she sounds young and small—fragile. Deep breath. “I guess you’re busy. Umm…I should have expected that…I just wanted to hear your voice…it’s stupid…I don’t know why I called.” She pauses for a minute, breathing hard, wiping tears that are gathering there with her knuckles. “So I ate three chocolate croissants. I guess I can do that now...don’t have to worry about what Marina will say...and…uh… I broke a plate and cried. Like really cried…over a plate…I think it might have been an anxiety attack…I don’t know…God…why am I such a mess right now. And I’m rambling on your answering machine.” She laughs, but it sounds hollow. “Umm…I guess I just called to say hi. No real reason, so I mean…don’t worry about calling back…I’m sure you have other things to do. I just miss talking to you everyday. I miss you. I really miss you…I’ll see you Saturday at the rink though…I guess. Love you.” She barely gets the last words out before choking out a sob.

She waits with her phone for hours. It never rings. She lets the house swallow her up in its emptiness.

  
  


_ Spring 2015 _

 

The girl has painted a perfect picture of herself. She has made her life seem as magazine worthy as her home. Though just like her house with its old bones and long history, makeup and forced smiles aren’t always enough. The window in the upstairs alcove is still off center—imperfect—the pipes are still old, there is a tree in the back—the one Mary’s girls used to have a tire swing on—whose roots are growing too close to the house threatening the foundation. You can strip something old down to the studs and remodel, but you can’t erase its history—only try to hide it. In an effort to find herself, the girl lost the most important pieces of herself, trying to erase certain parts of her history.

The evening sun shines through the kitchen window bathing the room in a low orange light. The girl sits at the island, clad in sweatpants and a tank top, dark circles rim her eyes and her hair lies in a tangled mess on top of her head. She flips through a magazine, sipping a half full glass of wine, but her mind seems elsewhere—somewhere in the past. She seems to be holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. And right before it does she closes her eyes, allows her lungs to slowly fill before exhaling sharply—like she can feel what’s about to happen before it does.

She doesn’t even flinch when the front door opens and the boy stumbles in, loudly making his way from the front door to the kitchen. She doesn’t even turn to look at him.

“Tess,” he starts, breathlessly. “We need to talk, about the other night.”

She takes a sip of her wine and rubs between her brow with both her hands. “Scott, you’re drunk. It’s eight and you’re drunk. We aren’t having a conversation. Not right now.”

She doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t look at her—maybe history never happened if you refuse to read the textbook. There is a new kind of tension between them, it is an invisible force that tightens the space around them.

“I’m not drunk. I had a few drinks with the guys at dinner. Had one more playing pool but I am not drunk, Tess. I’m living, having fun. That’s what you wanted us to do right?”

She huffs out a breath and casts him a pointed look, as if to say I know you’re lying and this isn’t what I meant by living. They do this, talk without speaking.

The boy is pacing and alternating between shaking his arms and ringing his hands—entirely unable to stay still. His nervous anticipation fills the space between them. Pushing them apart.

“Scott, sit down.”

“I can’t.”

She looks at him for the first time, takes in his slightly rumpled appearance, and nods to the bar stool next to her—a command—before closing her eyes and resting her head on the cold counter top. She is waiting for him.

He runs his hands through his hair, he looks tired and there is a heaviness to how he carries himself—pain, sadness, anger and disappointment. He is out of place here in this clean white kitchen—a place meant to be a respite, a place clear of noise and distraction is now being filled with the whirring of his emotions. He doesn’t belong here, not like he is now anyways. Right now, he is too much.

After pacing the length of the island a few more times he finally takes the seat beside her.

“Tess.” He says carefully, as if worried he will frighten her.

She looks up at him, slowly, blinking.

“We kissed,” he states, letting the weight of his words fill the air around them.

“I’m sorry,” her voice is small, broken.

He breaths in and finds her hands with his—he needs to comfort her. “No…Don’t be. Please…Don’t be sorry. We kissed and you said you love me…and it was…it was…”

“A lot? Too much? A mistake?” It is unclear if she is asking or stating these things. What is clear is she scared—of what happened, of what it means.

“Nothing with you is ever a mistake.”

She scrunches up her face, holding back tears and shakes her head. “Hasn’t seemed that way.”

He cups her face in his hands and forces her to look at him. “You are never a mistake and I am sorry I ever made you feel that way.”

He looks at her for a moment, holding her face in his hands and then he kisses her. Slow and gentle. The girl’s body reacts to him, melting into his touch, letting go fully for the first time in months. Watching them fall into each other is like witnessing the making of art. Too intimate, yet you can’t look away. They fit into each other like perfect pieces of a puzzle. They burn bright, blinding.

“We can’t. Scott…you can’t…” She breathes out when they finally pull away from each other.

There is so much history between them that it nearly fills the entire house, threatening to crush them.

“Then you shouldn’t have told me you love me,” he says, bluntly—maybe a little angry—before pressing his lips to hers again. Harsher this time.

She pulls away just enough to say something, but only that much. Their foreheads and noses are still pushed together. She speaks directly into his parted lips. “I shouldn’t have…”

“But you did,” his voice is raspy and low, hand tangled in the hair on the back of her neck.

They kiss again, and again. She finally stops them from going further, as his hand snakes up her top. “We can’t do this. Not like this. This…us…it’s a lot. This is everything. We still have so much to figure out…we can’t do this again…we can’t ruin everything…Scott, you have a girlfriend.”

“I’m already ruined Tess. We’re ruined…I need you. I lo—”

“Scott,” she warns, cutting him off before they can’t go back. “I have spent the last year trying to lose myself in projects, lose myself in anything that isn’t you. Because…because I can’t…I can’t…”

“I can’t breathe without you,” he finishes for her.

She nods. “You and me…we are so much. We can’t do this now, I shouldn’t have told you like that okay? It was wrong. It was selfish. This can’t happen now. We can’t crash and burn, not like before. That would break me. It would break us.”

“Tess, please.” He is gripping her arms firmly, desperately clutching on to her like if he were to let go she might float away.

She caresses his cheek and places her lips gently to his forehead. She speaks with purpose, carefully choosing her words—convincing herself as much as him, “Let’s just take the summer, kay? Just the summer. To be better. Let’s just pause this…and figure everything else out first. Just keep everything like it is…and just figure out if this is what we really want. If I am what you want. Because I don’t think you are thinking clearly now. So let’s just wait...wait to see if we can actually do this. Because this is everything.”

He looks at her, carefully deliberating her words for a long while the house is plunged back into silence. The moment seems to drag on forever before he finally says, “Okay.”

She climbs onto his lap where he sits on the barstool and they hold each other for a long time. Breathing together, each holding the other together so they don’t both fall apart. The sun has set and the kitchen has been pitched into darkness before they finally break apart.

On his way out, trying not to look at her, he notices the house. Taking in details he hadn’t before. Seeing her in all corners. He smiles for the first time since walking in the door. Tapping the door frame with his fist—original to the house—admiring the detail of the molding, he seems deep in thought.

“You did a good job with this house kiddo. I think you were right, it really was meant for you.”

She sighs heavily, her voice is hesitant, unsure if she should be telling him what she is about to. “When I bought this house, I’d always imagined that one day we’d have figure this all out and you’d live here with me. That’s what I pictured when I first walked in…but that seems like such a long time ago.”

“We still have time, kiddo,” is the last thing he says before leaving her alone in her doorway.

Her eyes shine in the same way they did when she first saw the house. Maybe she can dream again. Even if they still have a lot to figure out.

  
  


_ Spring 2018 _

 

The past few years the house has been empty more often than not. The girl hardly lives here anymore. But when she is here she is rarely alone. Hasn’t been for at least two, close to three, years. When she is home the boy—now a man—is almost always with her. In her bed at night making her sigh with pleasure, on the couch with her in the afternoon basking in quiet contentment, in the kitchen in the morning waiting with coffee.

She smiles more now. And despite it so often being empty, the house feels more like a home now than it has since Mary lived here with her family.

There is an ease to which they move with and around each other, as if cohabitation is a second nature to them. The house often falls into a comfortable quiet. The two don’t need to talk, just be and often it seems they speak without using words at all—a single touch or a look fills the room with unspoken conversation.

She is standing in the door of her walk-in closet—a space that didn’t exist when Mary lived here—looking contemplative. He comes up behind her, wrapping her in his arms as she relaxes into his touch. He makes this place feel like home.

“What are you thinking?” he asks into the crook of her neck, making her shudder.

“I’m thinking, how the hell am I going to fit nine weeks worth of clothes in three suitcases?”

He kisses her on the head. “I have faith in you.”

She hums and sinks further into his embrace. “You’re half packed. Suitcases are on the bed. But I think we still need to go to your parents to get that blue dress shirt and your shorts…I was thinking tonight, but it’d have to be after dinner and we’re pushing it for time…”

“I can go while you finish packing here. I think I have some skating pants there too.”

She spins in his arms and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “You know,” she muses, “if you just had all of your stuff here this would be much easier.”

He kisses her back and hums into her lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Scott, I want this to be your home too. Not just the place you usually stay and where you store only half your wardrobe. This is your home too.”

He pulls back and grins from ear to ear. “T, babe, home is wherever you are. If you want me here, this is home.”

She smiles back. “This still doesn’t mean you get any space in my closet. You have most of the dresser and the closet in the spare room.”

He laughs. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”  

“Welcome home,” She whispers pushing him out of the closet, towards the bed.

It will be months before they are back here again and the house will fall back into emptiness. But when they come back it will be completely and entirely together. They will come back to a home they share.

  
  


_ Spring 2019 _

 

When Mary picked this house she had the future in mind. She imagined how the back bedroom would look as a nursery, with the early morning sun bathing the room in soft low light. She pictured how a crib would fit perfectly against the far wall. How the upstairs alcove would be a perfect place for a rocking chair. How the backyard had enough room for a swing set and was enclosed enough she wouldn’t be scared to let her children play outside while she watched from inside the house. Mary had always known this was a house for a family. For her family. And eventually someone else’s.

They are home more now, the boy and girl—now really truly man and woman. They still travel more than most people, always seem to be on the go. But this place, this house the girl picked when she looked barely old enough to be in college, is finally home base. It’s where they return to after a long day, or week, or several weeks of working. Even when just one of them is home it never feels empty or lonely like it had for the girl in the past, because they both know the other will always return. There are no more suffocating silences, only companionable quiet.

They are in the back bedroom, the smallest of the three bedrooms upstairs.

“Tess,” he starts, “can you just look at the paint sample I got before you discount it?”

“Scott, I told you before I don’t want to paint. I like the clean neutral look. We can add colour with accents like those pictures I showed you. I already got the art for the walls and if we paint the walls it will just be too much.”

“You haven’t even looked, Tess. I thought this was supposed to be my house to…but I feel like I am not getting any say in any of this.” He is angry but breathes deeply and closes his eyes to keep his voice from rising.

She is standing in the doorway, arms folded protectively around her chest. She bites her lower lip and sighs, unsure of what to say because she knows he is right.

Before she has a chance to answers the sound of something crashing to the floor echoes through the house, the sound is emanating from near the front door. She turns and rushes down the stairs to find the source of the noise.

He stands in the room, imagining what it will look like once the new furniture has been assembled, once she has put art on the walls, and they get the glider in the corner. He spent hours on his computer looking at pictures until he found the perfect one, printing it and tucking it away in his bag. Something the girl would like, still soft and soothing but with a little more colour. He is deep in his thoughts, spinning around the room, picturing what it will soon be and what that means, when she calls out from downstairs.

“Paint the room whatever colour you want. I…I don’t even care if it is pink on pink...just I don’t even care. Okay, Scott. It’s not important…This is your house too…I love you. Paint whatever you want.” Her voice is choked with tears.

“T?” He’s running down the stairs.

He finds her kneeling in front of the coat closet, next to an old upturned box—one that he has only seen once when he carefully hid a box of his own on top of it—its contents spilled over the floor. In her hands is a small blue velvet covered box. She is wiping away tears, all while smiling and laughing.

“Scott?” She croaks.

He nods.

“How long?”

“A long time. But there were the Olympics and then tour and then planning our tour…and…” he kneels next to her and puts both hands on her belly, rubbing soothing circles. “Well I didn’t want you to think that I was asking you because of this.”

“Scott, I would never. No. I would never think that,” she covers his hands with one of hers.

“I love you,” he gently lifts the box from her hand as he runs butterfly kisses along the length of her neck. Still nuzzling into her neck, he opens the box, “I guess now that you’ve found this…” He leaves a lingering kiss under her ear and she sighs into him.

Taking her left hand in his he removes the ring from the box and slowly slips it on to her finger. Whispering into the crook of her neck he says, “Tess. Tessa. Kiddo. Baby. Love of my life,” he punctuates each name with a kiss. “Will you marry me?”

She is fully laughing and crying now and nodding furiously. “Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.”

He pulls her in for a kiss, wrapping her up in his arms, pulling her as close as he can. “So what was in that box?” He asks looking at the paper scattered over the floor.

“I don’t know, the box came with the house.”

She grabs the paper closest to her. And it is finally time, she has finally found it.

She slowly opens the folded piece of paper and an old photograph falls onto her lap. It is of Mary and her family. The five of them stand close to the boards at the Ilderton Skating Club in the late seventies. George is wearing a hockey jersey--from the junior team he coached after work--holding up Lisa, Mary next to him in a flowing skirt--her hair in a tight bun with a wrap around sweater looking very much like the ballet teacher she was--and Shelly and Carla on either side of them. The hockey player and the ballerina and their three little girls.

The girl is already tearing up from the photo and what it means before she begins to read the letter that accompanies the picture out loud. It is short, but filled with sentiment.

“To the next owners of my house, I have lived in this house for fifty years, thirty-six of those with the love of my life. Together, we raised three beautiful daughters here. Some days I swear I still hear their laughter ring out through the house, like living memories trapped within these four walls. I hope that one day another family, your family, will be able to fill this home with as many memories and as much love as we shared here. This house is special, I believe it chose me the minute I walked through the door. I hope that, whoever you are,  this house will be just as special to you. Mary.”

He has his arms wrapped around her stomach, his face buried in the crook of her neck. “Mary?” He asks, pressing his palms into the round bump of her belly.

And they both feel it, a kick. “I think she likes it.” The girl smiles. “Mary,” she whispers to her stomach.

They sit there in silence, in the midst of a pile of old papers and photographs in the hall by their front door. Their hands rest on her stomach feeling their daughter kick, while they bask in the monument of this moment. Of the last twenty minutes. She looks at the new ring adorning her left hand where it rests over her pregnant belly and takes in how perfect this is. With the man she loves, in the house that told her it had to be hers the moment she walked through the door. The same way it had the woman before her.

“Hey Tess,” he says, picking an old newspaper clipping off the floor.

And there they are, awkward kids with goofy grins, after winning Junior Nationals at sixteen and fourteen.

Tucked away in a box that came with the house, a box that belonged to Mary, a box filled with memories accumulated in this very house, is the old newspaper clipping of Tessa and Scott. It’s the one that Mary had carefully cut out and saved on a whim because she could feel in her bones that those kids were special. Maybe it was because Mary had always known they belonged here.

She is crying again (later she will blame all the tears on the pregnancy, but they will both know that isn't true). “I knew this house was always meant to be ours.” She's right.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was something I had imagined as I was writing the original story, but knew this wasn't the true ending to that story so had left it out. But after the tremendous response I got to this work I thought I would add it as an epilogue. And I would like to thank you all for reading, and for all the amazing comments. I am so over-joyed that this was received so well.

 

_Summer 2023_

From the moment they brought Mary home, the house belonged to her. That little girl instantly became the living, beating heart of the house—her presence permeating every corner. She grew into and around this house, filling it will her cries, with her laughter, with her infectious joy, and with more love than the house has seen in decades.

Now at four years old the little girl is smart as a whip and a careful observer like her mother, and full of boundless energy and spirit like her father. She loves to tell jokes that make no sense, but make her parents double over in laughter anyways. She loves ballet, and pretty flowers, and ponies, and playing Barbie, and yelling at the hockey players on TV with her dad, and dancing to oldies in the kitchen with her mom. She loves choreographing routines for her parents—which her mom affectionately refers to as interpretive dance. And most of all—after her parents— she loves her house, every little part of it. 

For the last four years the house has finally been full more than empty. The boy and girl—now husband and wife, and father and mother—still travel often for work but have made considerable effort to be more rooted to this place. They have turned this house into their forever home—a family home.

It is looking more lived in and less like a catalogue. It is still clean, impeccably decorated and for the most part a serene escape from the outside world. But there is evidence now of the life lived here. Small scuffs on the hardwood, tiny finger prints on the stainless-steel appliances, a little chocolate stain on the arm of the couch and some lost legos hiding underneath it. A tiny pink bike and helmet are propped up against the wall in the entryway, next to impossibly small pink running shoes.

The house has new stories to tell built from the many new memories made between its four walls. And as they build the house up with more of their own memories, the memories of past inhabitants slowly begin to fade—though never entirely. They kept Mary’s family photo, framed with the letter folded and tucked neatly behind it. It may seem odd to anyone else, but to them that photo represents a moment—or several— in their history that they never wish to forget. It was because that old box fell—scattering it’s contents all over the floor— that he asked her to marry him that day, and it was reading that letter that they decided on their daughter’s name, and it was one old photo and an old newspaper clipping that made them realize that this home was always meant to be theirs—forever. Just like the girl had seen all those years ago when she first walked through the door.

Little Mary is in her room playing quietly with her dolls when suddenly she stops. The little girl, with curly auburn pigtails and green eyes, looks wistfully around her little bedroom. Her eyes—which are little darker and rimmed more golden than her mother’s, closer to her father’s when the light catches them on a bright summers day—are half glazed over like she is caught somewhere between awake and dreaming. Her gaze rakes over the room as if she is seeing something no one else can.

She spins in circles smiling to herself, before saying to the room at large, “You are going to love it here, little one.”

Her mother is standing in the doorway watching her, her voice breaks the little girl out of her daydream. “Whatcha doing, kiddo?”

 “Mommy!” She cries, excitedly running over to her mother, wrapping her arms around her tightly. The little girl’s head barely reaches her mother’s middle.

“Hey, baby girl.” She smiles at her daughter, and affectionately runs her hands over her little girl’s hair.

Mary steps back and looks at her mom with a concentrated seriousness that only a four-year-old can possess and says, “Mommy, when my little sister gets here she will have this room, right? And then do I get the bigger room? Can I paint it pink? I want a pink room.”

 Her face falls and she drops to her knees in front of her daughter. She breathes in deeply, closing her eyes for a second to control her emotions, exhaling on a count of four. “Oh, baby…you really want a little sister, eh?”

She hesitates before continuing, her voice wavering on the edge of tears. “If you want to move to the big room and paint it pink, we can look into that. Okay kiddo? I will talk to daddy and we can go pick out paint, and a new big girl bed and everything—anything you want baby girl. But…but it won’t be because of a baby sister, not right now anyways.” Her look of heartbreak betrays the unsaid, _maybe not ever._

This is a hard conversation for her, it has been a difficult topic lately. One discussed in a tear-filled phone call with her mother mere weeks ago. _“Mom,” she had said. “It’s been nearly three years of trying, and there is just no reason, none that anyone can find anyways…I think maybe, maybe it just isn’t meant to happen. That we were just meant to have Mary, and that’s enough, right?”_   It's obvious she doesn’t believe what she says though--she loves her daughter desperately but the moment she’d seen the house she’d always pictured there being two. She had imagined two little girls playing dolls together, sharing whispered secrets, growing up together in this house. It had been so clear, as clear to her as the man she was always meant to share this house with.

Her little girl, her amazing, wonderful, empathetic little girl, places her chubby little hands on either side of her mother’s face and plants a wet kiss on her lips. “Don’t be sad mommy. My baby sister is in your tummy.”

She shakes her head, holding back tears. “No, Mary, there is no baby in Mommy’s tummy.”

“Yeah, she is in there mommy. The little girl says with unwavering confidence. This is something she just knows—like how she knows she likes ice cream and hates green beans— something that should be obvious.

Her mom shakes her head and looks like she wants to explain but is unsure how. But the little girl doesn’t give her a chance. She sighs and grabs her mother’s hands, like this is something that she just isn’t understanding—like it is the mother who needs a lesson from the child.  

“Mommy,” she starts, “babies start off really tiny. Really, really tiny in there in your belly. So you just don’t feel her yet mommy, because she is too small.”

Her mother smiles, and also seems to want to laugh at the lesson in the origins of babies she is receiving from her four-year-old.

The little girl pats her mom’s stomach and smiles a big, bright, baby toothed smile. “I saw it mommy. My baby sister…like I was dreaming…like the dream about you and daddy when I woke up and couldn’t find you, but this was happy. Not scary like that one. Happy. The house showed me my dream…and I know my baby sister is in your tummy already. And this is going to be her room soon.”  

She rubs he eyes with the heels of her hands, looking at her daughter—who’s hands still rest on her lower stomach—torn between logic and wanting or needing to believe her child. It is clear that the wheels are turning behind her eyes as she mulls over her daughter’s perfectly innocent and typical of an imaginative preschooler comment.  Normally this would all be cast aside as absurd, but she knows this house is special and has always had a way of showing her exactly what she needs to see.

 

_Spring 2024_

Tessa is sitting in her favourite spot, comfortable in big chair in the alcove upstairs, with her newborn daughter sleeping peacefully against her chest. She holds her baby tighter, feeling the small but steady rise and fall of her chest—the baby’s breathing matching her own. She is exhausted and sore, but so utterly content as the sun sinks lower in the sky bathing the upstairs hall in a low orange glow.

Mary, now nearly five, perches on the arm of the chair next to her, peering curiously at her brand-new baby sister. And Scott rests at her feet on the ottoman, gazing up at them with pure unadulterated happiness, sporting a teary-eyed grin. He takes out his phone and snaps a picture.

 (The picture will become one of her absolute favourites. One that she will have framed and keep on her dresser for many years to come. She is looking down at the beautiful, sleeping, newborn in her arms and her face radiates pure joy, while Mary sits slightly above them on the arm of the chair cooing at her new sister, her thumb gently brushing the tiny baby’s nose. The sunset in the window behind them casts the three of them in shadow and it is honestly the most beautiful image she has ever seen.)

Scott runs his hand along her calf and looks up at her like she is the brightest star in the sky, and it melts her heart that after nearly twenty-seven years of knowing her he still looks at her like that.

“I love you.” He whispers. “All three of you. My beautiful girls.”

“This is perfect. This is everything I have ever wanted.” She says back to him. And it is true.

This moment, this exact moment, is what she pictured thirteen years ago when she first set foot in this house. This is what she saw in her mind, what the house showed her, when she fell in love with this very spot. This is her completed family. Her heart and her house are full. This moment, surrounded by her two little girls, and the love of her life, is literally her dream come true. She is no longer the young girl imagining a life and family in this house, but the woman living that very life.

“Mary,” she says softly, “can you welcome your little sister home?”

“Welcome home Audrey,” Mary smiles down at her sister. “I know you will love it here.”

She places the gentlest of kisses to Audrey’s head.

This Tessa's house, with her family of four, and this is how it was always meant to be. 


End file.
